


And From The Darkness Rose The Stars

by dysfunctionalbatfam, Queerbutstillhere



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Batfam Big Bang 2020, Batfamily (DCU), Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Co-Written, Crime Fighting, Crime Scenes, Gen, M/M, Power Outage, Riots, The Joker - Freeform, Unfinished, emp detonations, gotham in chaos, mildly canon compliant, public panic/riot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:15:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26760481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dysfunctionalbatfam/pseuds/dysfunctionalbatfam, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queerbutstillhere/pseuds/Queerbutstillhere
Summary: While the batfamily is scattered across America, a powerful Kryptonite EMP pulse is discharged in Gotham - effectively blowing fuse and frying all electronics along the East Coast. Panic sweeps throughout Gotham's underbelly while crimes flare in numbers under the darkness. In a race to maintain order in the city, the batfamily attempts to return to Gotham and regroup before any more chaos can destroy it further.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Wally West, Hal Jordan/Bruce Wayne, Jonathan Samuel Kent & Damian Wayne, Roy Harper/Jason Todd, Stephanie Brown & Duke Thomas, Stephanie Brown & Duke Thomas & Jason Todd, Tim Drake/Kon-El | Conner Kent
Comments: 4
Kudos: 46
Collections: Batfam Big Bang 2020





	And From The Darkness Rose The Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kontent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kontent/gifts), [bisexualoftheblade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bisexualoftheblade/gifts), [Crystalinastar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crystalinastar/gifts), [21_ThatOneTheatreKid_05](https://archiveofourown.org/users/21_ThatOneTheatreKid_05/gifts).



> Hello everyone! This fic is our contribution to the 2020 Batfam Big Bang! It was such a pleasure to work on this bang and get to meet all these awesome people! Go check out the collection for even more awesome fics of literally any genre centered on batfam characters!
> 
> Please read and enjoy!

Gotham. A city of grime and filth and gunk. A city that makes anyone living in it question why on earth they are even here. 

A city that makes it impossible to leave.

Once you’re inside Gotham, you are part of Gotham. Few people leave the same way they come in, and very few people ever leave. You get sucked into the crime and the filth and the despair of Gotham. Once you come to Gotham, you should just focus on your work, on the little things that you do day to day to stay alive. Don’t you dare focus on how at any moment, everything could be over for you, or about how at any moment one of Gotham’s rogues could decide to blow up your neighborhood. Once you start focusing on that, you’ll start wondering what the point of life is even more. And once you go down that path . . . well that’s how you end up working for one of the Rogues.

Duncan Piper is unfortunate enough to have been born here. He has been stuck in this city for his whole nineteen years, and wasn’t able to get that scholarship that would’ve gotten him out of the city, out to New York to study. No, he is stuck here, trying to get his nursing degree at Gotham University, an arguably corrupt and shitty school in an inarguably corrupt and shitty town. He lives in one of the lower middle class neighborhoods, in his parents’ house, which was, admittedly, not the best home situation. But it’s fine, he does his thing and they do theirs, and they don’t talk about their private lives, his especially.

He’s used to a lot of bullshit. He’s survived Joker gas and Scarecrow’s fear venom. He’s survived the one time Poison Ivy destroyed half of the industrial park, and he’s survived the one time Harley went on a joyride around midtown. He is, by no means, mentally okay, he has so much trauma and PTSD for only being nineteen, but he’s resilient and strong and he is going to make a place for himself in this shithole town.

“Duncan, you better clean that pan before you leave!"

“Yes, mom!” he yells back to her with an eye roll.

Duncan sets his backpack back down by the door and walks into the kitchen, shoes squeaking on the hardwood, still wet from his last trip to school. It seems the blizzards have no intention of stopping. He walks over to the sink, grabbing the pan he had used to cook his eggs in on the way, and he shoves the pan in, rinsing it and putting some dish soap in, before beginning to scrub. 

Duncan doesn’t expect much of Gotham, other than general chaos and disaster, but after a while, you start to get used to the rhythm: when the Rogues would be causing chaos, where Batman and Robin would be on what nights, how to avoid any large crime scenes. You get used to carrying pepper spray and collapsible batons and fake phones and wallets. Gotham is a brutal place to raise a child, and yet many people do.

But he certainly doesn’t expect today’s chaos event. He is still innocently scrubbing at his pan, when the lights go blindingly bright, flicker, and then, accompanied by a loud pop, like a lightbulb blowing, the power goes out. An odd silence falls over the house for just a second: no tv playing, no lights buzzing, no shitty heating unit humming. And then the swearing starts. 

Duncan frowns and looks around as he hears his mom cussing, moving around and bumping into things in the dark. There is a glow from the outdoors, sunlight reflecting off the snow, but not enough to fully light the house. 

He reaches for his phone, and notes with alarm that it’s oddly hot. And it won’t turn on.

“What the fuck?” he asks out loud, holding the button for a few seconds. 

Still nothing. It won’t even boot up in safestart mode. He slips the phone back into his pocket, and starts digging around in kitchen drawers until he finds a flashlight. But it doesn’t turn on either.

“Damn batteries,” he mutters, tossing the useless light in the drawer again and turning, making his way back into the living room where his mom is.

“Mom!?”

“Duncan, come here!”

He walks over to where she is standing in front of the window, holding the curtains back and squinting out at the street. 

Their house sits right at a street corner, and at the stop sign, there are multiple cars just sitting still in the middle of the road, people getting out, looking at their engines. There had been a minor accident on the other side of the intersection, the two people yelling at each other over it. 

“Stay inside,” Duncan tells his mom softly, grabbing his coat and gloves, pulling both on, and patting his pockets to make sure his pocket knife is safely inside. Then he slips out the door, into the winter air.

The wind is vicious, cold and biting as it spits snow and ice directly into his face. Other than the people yelling and some dogs barking, the city is quiet. There are no sounds of factories running, or of construction, or of cars driving down the road. It is dead silent. And it is the creepiest thing Duncan has ever experienced in his entire life. He jogs over to the nearest stranded driver, a middle aged woman.

“What’s the matter?” he asks, walking around to where she was staring hopelessly at her engine.

She flinches away from him instinctually, then looks up, squinting slightly. “I think my battery is dead.”

“Let me see.”

“Actually,” she said. “I think everyone’s battery is dead.”

Duncan stops, taking a moment to listen to the others who were mostly arguing with each other. And sure enough, they all seem to be arguing and yelling about dead batteries. 

Power at his house is out. His phone won’t work. Flashlight doesn’t work. Cars on the road don’t work. . . . what the hell was going on?

“Can you check your phone for me?”

“It’s dead.”

“Really?” he asks, feeling dread start to settle over him.

“Yeah, and that’s weird because I was charging it while I was driving.”

“Shit.”

“What the hell is going on?” the woman asks, as if she hopes he’ll have an answer, looking around, wrapping her arms around her body.

“I have no fucking idea.”

* * *

  
  


“We should run these through again,” Duke says, frowning as he carefully swirls the liquid sample in his hand. “There’s ought to be something other than acetic anhydride in here.”

“You think so?” Stephanie swings her legs before jumping off the control board of the Batcomputer. She snatches the dish over his shoulder and sets it for another scan through the advanced computer. Settling down, she then pushes against the other and types something up before sitting back. Duke nudges her back to the side, eyes glued to the screen.

“Christ,” Duke says suddenly, sitting up straighter. 

Stephanie’s eyes flit back up to the display. “What’s wrong?”  
“Perchloric acid. Almost a three-one ratio.”  
“So?”

“They’re reactive,” Duke dislodges the dish and places it on the table, pushing it slightly away and starts pulling up articles. “In 1947, a carte of a thousand liters with similar chemical structure exploded, injuring almost two hundred people and destroyed even more buildings.”

“So what?” Stephanie repeats, “we’ve uncovered only a small cartel. Not enough to cause significant damage.”

“We don’t know that there isn’t m-” Duke cuts himself off right before the Batcomputer emits a raw screeching noise and shuts off. “What the fuck?”

Stephanie whirls around as if searching for something, her hood flying off her head. “The emergency lights should be on by now. Hang on, I gotta find the switch.”

“Wait,” Duke fumbles for his helmet. “We don’t know what happened yet, we can focus on that later. I’m going to check on Alfie.”

“Coming!” Stephanie calls from somewhere further in the cave, having made it rather far before he stopped her. He hears her footsteps swiftly approaching even in the dark: they’ve very well memorized the layout of the cave by now, proving no difficulty moving around without sight.  _ Deep breaths, don’t panic, _ he reminds himself as he instinctively makes his way to the elevator.

Stephanie’s slower, her concentration focused on the flashlight she’s trying to start-up in the midst of running. To no avail. She swears under her breath, pushing over the plate that holds the batteries. It would be oddly strange for them to be dead, for they change it rather often. To be so unprepared that your flashlight couldn’t turn on? A Bat would  _ never _ live that down. In a fit of frustration, she tosses the device to the side and catches up to Duke.

“Fuck,” Duke’s saying, a hand in the wiring panel next to the elevator, the other clutching a pair of clippers he had most likely retrieved on his way. “Elevator’s down as well.”

She doesn’t pause as she pulls her grapple gun out of her belt, steps past him, and fires with a cheeky “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

Duke groans with no malice behind it and shuts the panel. “Guess there  _ is  _ a faster way.” He hears Stephanie’s heavy landing upstairs and rushes to go after her, firing his own hook. He’s not really thinking right now, but the muddled sense of danger and worry for Alfred lurks in the back of his mind. He doesn’t know what is happening, but he expects the worst.  _ Not panicking _ .  _ Definitely not. Nope, not me. Never. _

He soon catches up with Stephanie, breathing and running together. “Alfred’s our priority right now,” Duke says quickly when they approach the main rooms. “You search the living room first and branch out to the left, I’ll take the kitchen.” He receives a quick nod in response as she departs to search the other room.

The kitchen is clean as always, thanks to Alfred’s help, although it lacks the familiar buzzing of the refrigerator or the quiet hum of the stove. He assumes the fridge stopped working as well, which just complicates things even further-  _ Alfred _ , he reminds himself.  _ Stay focused, Duke _ . There’s a lot more light out here from the dimmed sunlight streaming in between the folds of the curtains, enough for his eyes to adjust and yearn out to try to catch a glimpse of his surroundings-

“Fuck!” Duke hears from the next room, and on instinct, he whips around. It’s Stephanie’s voice.  _ It’s Steph, oh god, is everything okay, shit, _ and he bolts immediately without much thought, panic seizing his chest. He practically slides into the parlor, frantically looking up.

_ Oh. _

Alfred’s seated by the fireplace in the center of the right wall, flames licking at the coals with a quiet but steady crackle. The warm glow of the fire illuminates a less saturated light over the room compared to the blizzard outside, while also providing competent heat as opposed to the cold. The man himself is completely relaxed, a saucer poised on his lap, on which he rests the tea he had been sipping calmly over Stephanie’s exasperated groan. 

“I see you’ve finally joined us, Master Duke.”

“What the  _ fuck _ ?”

  
  


“So,” Stephanie drags out the letter, “you’re saying that none of the electronics appear to be working? No wonder my flashlight wasn’t turning on.”

“Indeed, Miss Stephanie,” Alfred says rather pointedly. “Fortunately, I have some more…  _ mechanical _ flashlights which prove to be more efficient than your battery-powered ones.”

“Mechanical?” Duke questions.

“It appears that any equipment requiring a source of power has shut down, along with all electricity. I suspect a variation of an EMP pulse at work. However, these flashlights take energy from the friction which you wind manually.”

“EMP pulse,” Stephanie’s saying before Alfred even finishes his sentence. “I’ve seen Timmy use it several times before to shut down electronics in battle.” Under her breath jokingly, “Show-off.”

“But to cover the entire Manor, or maybe even more, that means that it’s no small thing at play,” Duke finishes, ignoring her comment. He scratches the back of his head. “Shit.”

“Language, Master Duke,” Alfred reprimands. “However, I must confess I share your sentiment.”

“Basically, we’re screwed,” Stephanie concludes, kicking against the armchair across from him that she draped herself across earlier. “Timbo’s in San Fran with his buds, Bruce’s on another ‘mission’ with his  _ friend _ , Cassie’s in Hong Kong, and Dick is still in Bludhaven with his boyfriend. We don’t have our usual equipment nor backup. Babs would normally help but she can’t do anything without her electronics- speaking of, we should probably check in with her-”

“Let’s run through the city first,” Duke cuts in, his anxious thoughts still roaming his head. “Barbara’s capable of taking care of herself, and we can meet back up later.”

She pauses as if to consider his makeshift plan. “Aight, that works for me, I guess. Alfie?”

“I shall stay in the Manor to see what I can do with the current situation. I do suggest you two head out quickly before night falls.” Alfred stands up after wishing them luck to attend to his added duties. 

As soon as he leaves, Spoiler jumps to her feet and pulls her mask up to her face in one quick motion. Signal adjusts his helmet, thankful that he had decided to pick it up in a moment of stress. It all depends on them now. 

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

Traveling to Gotham without vehicles isn't easy, and that's without the multiple inches of snow. Fortunately, the Waynes’ habit of hoarding came in handy.

"I can't believe skis are how we're getting into town."

Steph glances over at Duke, jamming her ski sticks a little harder into the snow and propelling herself down the small hills.

"Believe it, Dukie, it's not like we can take the batcar or something."

"Well yeah, but the fact that he just has these lying around..."

Steph shrugs and focuses on skiing. It takes them a while to get into town at this speed, all bundled up against the cold as well - their usual cold gear isn't functioning due to their power sources being fried - and as soon as they get in, Steph wants to leave again.

The city is in absolute chaos. They enter into Uptown, and immediately discover looting happening left and right. Crime Alley is well representing its name today: people are brawling over the smallest things, coats, blankets, food, firewood, any basic survival items.

"I hate this town some days," Duke says, resigned.

Steph looks at him, with a grin that he doesn't see. 

"And yet you're still here."

She kicks off her ski's and ditches the poles, running into town, getting in between two people brawling over what appears to be a coat. 

"Knock it off!" She yells at them, grabbing the closest and pulling them back, shoving the other one away.

The one with the coat immediately spins and takes off running. 

"Fuck you, Spoiler!" The man she is holding shoves her off and turns to stalk away.

It's like the Purge, the further into town they get. They have to stop trying to break up every petty fight, because there are just so many, it would take hours to get any further into town. As they reach the shopping districts, they find shattered glass everywhere, crunching in with the snow under their feet. Almost all the stores are half looted, yet it seems that people have realized the technology issue, just like the Bat Co. have, because most technological items were left where they were.

"This is insane!" Duke exclaims as he jumps in between a woman and a man who is attacking her. 

The woman is, by no means, incapable of defending herself, in fact, she's the one about to shank the man with a jagged knife. Her knife just catches in Duke's coat instead, and the teen glares down at her. She squeaks and yanks the knife out before turning and running away. Duke turns to Steph.

"Spoiler, there's no way the two of us can handle this. Without comms we can't risk splitting up," he complains, gesturing around them.

“We can’t hold them back forever,” Stephanie says between pants, leaning against a water pipe that ran down the wall of the brick apartment building. “We have to call backup.”

“Who can we even call?” Duke grits his teeth, frustration seeping into his voice. They are overwhelmed tonight, and although they have managed to catch a break, the night still isn’t over. The streets are flooded with confused civilians and mobsters alike, the latter wanting to take advantage of this panic. Not to mention that it is public information that most of the bats were on duty. “As you said, there’s no one here right now!”

She turns her head dramatically to look at him and offers a sly grin.

“Jason Todd.”  
  


* * *

“God, you’re a dumbass.”

“I’m the dumbass?” Roy grumbles, watching from where he had fallen on the floor.

“Well, you’re the one bleeding on our floor, so yes.”

Jason clambers through the window, much more gracefully than the in pain archer was able too. He stands there with his hands on his hips, shaking his head at Roy.

“You gonna help me up, handsome?”

“No, I’m going to let you sit there and bleed out, I’ve decided just now.”

Roy grumbles out some curses at him. Jason just laughs and reaches down, picking up his boyfriend easily. He helps Roy over to the kitchen counter, and helps him hop up on it. Roy had gotten shot in the bicep while they were out chasing down a drug lord. He had made a dumb, risky move and while it had ended up working out, it had still ended with him being injured. 

Jason finds their first aid kit in the bathroom closet. It’s more of a mini surgery box than the average first-aid kit at this stage. Roy is just sitting on the kitchen counter, hand pressed on the makeshift bandage they had made.

“You really gotta stop getting shot,” Jason grumbles, as he sterilizes his equipment, then pulls on surgical gloves.

“Says you. How often are our roles here reversed?”

“Hey, at least I don’t have half my body unprotected.”

“Oh, shut up, it’s not as bad as you make it seem.”

“It’s actually worse.”

Roy kicks and nails Jason in the knee.

“Ow! Do you want me to stitch you up or not!?”

After a moment of bickering, they finally settle. Jason undoes Roy’s temporary bandage and tosses the bloody rag in the sink, quickly setting about cleaning the injury. It’s a clean bullet wound, in one side, out the other.

Jason had just begun to stitch the wound closed when everything goes dark. Sounds of appliances powering down quickly follows, and they are left in a still, dark room. Roy yelps as Jason accidentally yanks on the suture while turning to look around, and Jason swears, freezing.

“What the fuck just happened?” Roy asks softly, his hand finding Jason's forearm.

“I don’t know? Power outage I guess?”

“Fuck.”

“Let me grab a flashlight and I’ll finish this up.”

Jason passes Roy the suture needle, pulling off his gloves and going to find a light. He ends up checking three different flashlights, as well as their phones and finding all of them dead. Their phones had been left to charge, and he knows that they keep the batteries in the flashlights charged.

“Do you have candles?” Roy calls, hearing Jason blunder around in the dark.

“Yeah, one second!”

It takes Jason a minute to walk around the apartment, collecting candles from their various locations. He sets a couple around Roy before finding a lighter. Soon, the soft, usually romantic glow of candles is filling the kitchen.

Roy chuckles. “We should do candlelight stuff more often,” he jokes, grinning down at Jason. “Just us, some candles, alone~”

“Shut up, Harper.”

Jason snatches the needle back, but he’s grinning. It takes him a few minutes in the bad lighting - he may have accidentally poked Roy a few times too - but he gets Roy stitched up, and quick bandages the area around the stitches.

“How long do you think power is gonna be out?” Roy asks, quickly snatching a water bottle from the fridge so he can take painkillers.

“No idea, but don’t you think it’s weird that our phones aren’t working either?”

“Yeah, that is a little strange.”

Jason looks around, frowning. “It’s as if. . . everything that needs power is down.”

“Yeah, as if that’s possible.” Roy walks over to the window. “Actually. . . I hate to say this but I think that might be the most normal thing that could happen to Gotham.”

Jason snorts. Roy’s not wrong.

“Hey. . . Jaybird?”

“Yeah?”

“I think you’re right?”

Jason walks over and looks down into the street below their window. People are standing outside of their cars, arguing with each other. Two people are getting ready to fight. Jason and Roy look at each other.

“Oh shit.”  
  


* * *

“Are you crazy?” Duke laughs, almost hysterically. “Great, just what I wanted, to die!”

“Grow up,” Stephanie snarks, clearly amused. Although Jason and the rest of the family weren’t on good terms, they had bonded together and formed an unspoken friendship. “That man cries at Disney movies.”

“No way,” Duke shakes his head, stepping back a bit. “He’s a highly dangerous and unstable individual. The  _ last  _ thing we should do is team up with him!”

“That’s the point,” Stephanie chirps before falling back into seriousness. “Besides, do we have any other choice right now?”

“So how are we going to contact him? Smoke alarms?” Duke jokes half-heartedly, voice still strained. He doesn’t acknowledge her second statement.

“Nope. We’re heading for Babs. She’ll know where we could find him.”

They try to avoid as many crimes as they can on the way to Barbara’s office in the Clock Tower, even if it seems that the criminals are almost purposefully picking on them. Duke has to resist the itch to help guide civilians or stop obvious goons, or at least, try to. Mission first, as Batman taught them.  _ Prioritize. _

He stands back to let Stephanie skillfully dismantle the advanced security measures in the tower with practiced hands. He wouldn’t be surprised if she had to do this often. Even though he’s only entered this headquarters a few times, he had heard of villains such as Black Mask attempting to break in as to retrieve information. He supposes the measures are there for a good reason.

Careful not to misstep, Duke follows a less cautious Steph closely as she bounds up the winding stairs leading to the room. He watches as the other slides open the door to find-

Duke takes a wobbly step back as his eyes meet another unmistakable, acid-green pair.  
  
  


Jason couldn’t have been given a good sum of money to predict the Bats would come up to the tower. He supposes it makes sense - he’s heard that most of them had left: going to Barbara is an obvious decision. He doesn't know why, but he still didn’t expect them. He senses Roy move closer to him, and whether it is to offer support or to restrain him, he never finds out. Instead, he pulls out of the current conversation with the Oracle to survey the visitors. In particular, the one whose body read  _ fight or flight  _ the moment he lays his eyes on him.

The infamous Red Hood wouldn’t blame anyone. Although he has taken his helmet off to tuck under his arm, he still looks intimidating to the average person, with his unkempt skunk stripe and his plausibly flared-up Pit green eyes that boast an implied erratic “insanity.” His array of weaponized guns decorate his person, serrated knives tucked into his straps. 

Not to mention his reputation.

The duffle bag stuffed with heads never got over him. The stories of his Pit-crazed days still roam the streets freely. And with Duke? Jason knew the unforgiving way Bruce profiled his enemies. He’s seen it firsthand. He’s no longer his son in his eyes, just another insane criminal.

That’s okay. He deserves it. 

But before he can open his mouth, Stephanie bounds forward in one fluid, easy motion. She’s always been one to act, and Jason likes that. He likes that she treats him like an actual person, without the edging hesitation from Tim or the pitying looks from Dick or Bruce’s blazing cold. He knows it’s well-earned, but he admits that he’s glad Stephanie is a somewhat friend.

“Roy?” She exclaims, reaching out to latch onto the man’s arms. “What are you doing here?”

“Hey Steph,” Roy says, flushing a little. “Nothing, uh, just visiting. Jay.” He sees Barbara shoot him a knowing, amused glance. 

“Steph.” Jason’s lip curls upward. “Tell the new kid to relax.”

Duke glares at him, but Jason doesn’t seem bothered. Barbara just rolls her eyes. 

“Are you children ready to focus?” she asks. “Because it’s time to make a plan.”

All four turn to face her, ready to hear what she has to say.

“So here’s what I was thinking....”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to the amazing mods of this event for setting everything up and dealing with us for two months!
> 
> Thank you to all our betas: kontent, crystalinastar, and 21_ThatOneTheatreKid_05 !!!
> 
> And thank you to the artists who have made amazing art for this fic, available to view on tumblr! Bisexualoftheblade, Spiderman1644, and greenbean-riverdean on tumblr!
> 
> There will be more updates, so stay tuned!


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